Further budget cuts to England railways

[WAB]

I'd add that effective traincrew diagramming needs looking at. We need more drivers doing a full service (so say a Plymouth driver working Plymouth to London and back again, or a Liverpool driver driving to Newcastle and back again). Despite the largely discredited view that changing drivers 5 times on route saves money, (it really doesnt), traincrew strategy needs looking at again. This could probably lead to a reduced headcount (with natural wasteage), but only if the right depots work the right routes, and some of the fat that has built up in the past few years is trimmed.

What changes are you thinking of? It's my impression that the DfT has been well and truly clamping down on any excess traincrew resources.

 

[JamesT]

I have never understood how anyone could even think that changing drivers so often would make a saving. It stands to reason that the longer the driver is in the seat on the same train the better. Once you start swapping drivers over each driver loses at least 15 mins of productivity as they move between trains. It's clearly delusional that this would be better in any way (service resilience, cost etc etc).

Doesn’t that depend on how well that long turn fits into a working day? There’s more chance of shorter jobs fitting together to fully utilise a shift?
Presumably a smaller operating area implies less route knowledge required, so in turn less need for ‘unproductive’ route refreshment?

 

[irish_rail]

What changes are you thinking of? It's my impression that the DfT has been well and truly clamping down on any excess traincrew resources.

Well superfluous depots for a start. On GWR there are now way too many depots, all needing sufficient work, and frankly, it isn't working. They are an expensive waste. There is no need for 6 depots between Swansea and Paddington for example. Used to be most Swansea trains where a Swansea driver up to London and back. Now there are driver changes at places like Cardiff, Swindon and Reading on some services. This simply isn't necessary.

Traincrew diagramming in my view needs to revolve around (on GWR long distance to give an example), Plymouth, Bristol and Swansea depots, with other depots fitting in as required where there are gaps. So the Plymouth, Bristol and Swansea to London trains would be driven up and back by a Plymouth, Bristol or Swansea driver. Obviously say the early morning trains out of London and late evening ones back would be covered by Paddington crews, etc. We need to get back to depots doing what they are good at. For example Exeter is perfectly placed for the local Devon branch work, yet at present we have a situation where GWR wants all and sundry at Exeter to drive London trains. Similarly, there is no need for Gloucester depot to be driving Bristol to Taunton, especially when it is currently at the expense of Plymoth drivers doing it (when for Plymouth it would provide a really useful diversionary route, but they had to lose it so that Gloucester could have it!). It's these kind of mad inefficiencies that need looking at that over time could lead to big traincrew savings. Sorry for the long post!

 

[class ep-09]

Doesn’t that depend on how well that long turn fits into a working day? There’s more chance of shorter jobs fitting together to fully utilise a shift?
Presumably a smaller operating area implies less route knowledge required, so in turn less need for ‘unproductive’ route refreshment?

You don’t need refresh anything if you have productive turns of duty over a route.

Exceptions being rare diversions - but that’s what they are - rare .

 

[irish_rail]

Doesn’t that depend on how well that long turn fits into a working day? There’s more chance of shorter jobs fitting together to fully utilise a shift?
Presumably a smaller operating area implies less route knowledge required, so in turn less need for ‘unproductive’ route refreshment?

This is a good example where a Plymouth to London and back turn fits absolutely perfectly into the working day. With PNB in London it's a good 8 or 9 hours shift. Perfectly productive. Similar with Swansea to London, and Newxastle, Preston, etc. Breaking up journeys for multiple drivers is done as a nessecity due to to many depots being opened where they are not effectively needed, and it is this surplus I'd be looking at to save money.

 

[Mark J]

Well superfluous depots for a start. On GWR there are now way too many depots, all needing sufficient work, and frankly, it isn't working. They are an expensive waste. There is no need for 6 depots between Swansea and Paddington for example. Used to be most Swansea trains where a Swansea driver up to London and back. Now there are driver changes at places like Cardiff, Swindon and Reading on some services. This simply isn't necessary.

Surely XC would benefit from Depot space at Reading, especially when many of their southwards late night services terminate at Reading.

 

[irish_rail]

Surely XC would benefit from Depot space at Reading, especially when many of their southwards late night services terminate at Reading.

Yes I'd say XC drivers at Reading would make sense as Birmingham to Bournemouth is a heck of a long way to go with a traincrew desert. In a similar length, GWR have about 5 depots between South Wales and London. It is this imbalance that needs addressing. In an ideal joined up world, some GWR Reading drivers would be trained up on Voyagers and the routes to Bournemouth and Birmingham. This would he far more useful than the present arrangement of training them to take small pieces of work away from depots like Plymouth to places like Westbury which is pretty pointless.